January 8: Owner Michael Bidwill has not told Kingsbury about his plans one way or another, as Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL.com report. While Bidwill is doing his homework on coaching candidates, he no longer has Keim as a trusted sounding board, and the NFL.com duo suggest that a Kingsbury firing is not a sure thing. After all, Bidwill will already have to replace Keim, and an accompanying coaching change could be too much turnover, unless he can be sure he is getting an upgrade.
That is to say nothing of the fact that he would have to pay Kingsbury and Keim through at least 2026 while also paying his new coach and GM (previous reports indicated that the recent extensions that Bidwill greenlighted for Kingsbury and Keim ran through 2027, but Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk reports that Kingsbury’s deal is guaranteed through 2026, with 2027 being an option year).
Rapoport and Pelissero name Sean Payton as a possible candidate to replace Kingsbury, and Florio notes that the Saints are expecting to hear from Arizona about the possibility of acquiring Payton’s rights. New Orleans has already granted the Broncos permission to interview Payton, and those two clubs appear to have trade compensation — which features a first-round draft choice — largely in place.
January 7: With the NFL’s regular season set to come to a close, ‘Black Monday’ has nearly arrived. One move which would, given recent reporting, come as little surprise would be the Cardinals parting ways with head coach Kliff Kingsbury. 
The 43-year-old signed an extension this past offseason, one in which general manager Steve Keim and quarterback Kyler Murray each inked long-term deals of their own to remain in Arizona. Things have not gone according to plan on the field or in the front office this season, however, to the point where it is something of an “open secret” that Kingsbury will be fired this Monday. Such a decision would reflect the team’s regression in 2022, but also invite questions with respect to his replacement.
On that point, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer reports (via Johnny Venerable of the PHNX Cardinals Podcast, on Twitter) that Cardinals defensive coordinator Vance Joseph is expected to be “a lead candidate, if not the lead candidate” to succeed Kingsbury. Promoting the former would represent a level of internal maneuvering which would run counter to what many feel the organization should be aiming for.
Keim – who is currently away from the team – is also thought to be on his way out of Arizona, a departure which (if coupled with the firing of Kingsbury) would clear the way for a total re-tooling on the sidelines and in the front office, should ownership be inclined to move in that direction. Joseph, on the other hand, would be a familiar face to take on the HC role, as he has served in his current capacity since 2019. The Cardinals’ defense has seen two years of above-average ranks during that span, but the unit has taken a step back this year.
Heading into the final week of games in 2022, Arizona sits 29th in the league in terms of points allowed per game (25.7). The team has struggled in particular against the pass, and has been unable to establish a consistent pass rush during the campaign. In spite of that, Joseph, 50, has reportedly boosted his stock heading into the 2023 coaching cycle. His time in Arizona came after a two-year stretch as the Broncos’ head coach in which the team went 11-21.
That period, in turn, was preceded by one year spent in Miami as a DC in 2016. The Dolphins interviewed Joseph for their head coaching vacancy last offseason, before ultimately hiring Mike McDaniel. It will be worth monitoring how much outside interest he generates for HC (or at least coordinator) openings in the coming days and weeks should he hit the open market at all.
But will Vance Joseph be having the time of his life in Arizona? Inquiring minds and sports reporters want to know.
Nothing against Joseph, but the Cardinals situation seems like it should be a housecleaning. Get rid of everyone and start over.
This is one of the few times where I believe that sentiment is correct. People always want to throw everything out and start over every single time that there is an issue, rather than taking the time to fix said issue. What they ignore is that the most successful teams take a lot of time to build a solid foundation that the fine details of success are eventually mounted on.
In Arizona’s case, there really is not much to build on. There are several young players with talent-Budda Baker certainly, possibly Marquise Brown, possibly Isaiah Simmons (depending on his usage and coaching) all come to mind. There are a couple of midlevel veterans that were attached to the old regime who could be useful to a new one in Ertz and Conner. Allen is a potentially good young player. But there’s not really anything that is absolutely intrinsically crucial to the team identity, because there is no team identity. There was a lot of investment, in free agency and in the draft, and not really any success.
Kyler Murray is a literal question mark in terms of positive or negative value. The only thing that we know is that Arizona is likely tied to him for the next couple of years, but what they will do (and how effective Murray will be) is ultimately unknown. Will they try to start him as “regular” expensive quarterback instead of the anointed franchise savior? Maybe. Will they get sick of him and try to trade him? Maybe. Will they lose patience eventually and just bench him? Guess what, another maybe. We do also know that they built a roster especially for him, hired a coach especially for him, wrote a contract especially for him, and developed a gameplan especially for him. It didn’t work. So, yes, a full rebuild is in order. Will Murray play ball with it? We’ll see. But he won’t have the same faces calling the shots. Their patience may not have such short memories.
Coach Vance Joseph, from here; you watch him now on the screen. There’s diversity in his background, it’s helping him a lot tonight. Quarterback at Colorado, defensive back in the NFL. And here he is, having the time of his life, this night, making his head coaching debut.
Ignorance and incoherent
Don’t mess w Sergio dipp bro
Ya. I called this one out already. I could see it happening.
It’d be hires like this one where you can say “yep, you can get promotions and jobs you want without being good at what you do.” How the hell do they think it’s a good idea to promote a guy who has been awful at his job for years. I’m sorry, but the stats don’t lie. He must be a very likable guy and have a good relationship with ownership.
Don’t necessarily think he is head coaching material, but this defense has definitely overachieved this season given the personnel
29th in the league in point allowed is overachieving?
Yeah cause the cardinals defence has been so good for years now
With young 1st round picks on it.
To be fair to Joseph, the Cardinals have a lovely habit of drafting players with a ton of potential and playing them way out of position or wasting that potential. I can’t count the times that I’ve seen a player that I was excited to see in the pros went to Arizona and ended up cut within three years.
Joseph has certainly done much more with much less in terms of resources over the last couple of years than Kingsbury has on offense, but they just as certainly need a new GM, ego presumably would want to start fresh.
Seems like bad form to be talking about replacements for someone who might still be the head coach next season.
It’s not considered bad form to discuss players who may not be on the roster next season so why should it be different for coaches or front office personnel?
This is an organization that needs to clean house. Time for a new GM and a new head coach to bring fresh ideas to a team going nowhere.
Time for new ownership. 75 years with this family and no titles. Bidwell is just another silver spoon owner. Has no clue in running an NFL team. He finds someone he wants to pal around with and let’s the fans suffer. How does someone after last years dreadful finish re-sign Keim and Kingsbury for 4 more years?
There is an old expression, Bad decisions, beget bad decisions. The Cardinals are the epitome of that saying.
Well the way it’s usually done is you hire someone to lead the organization, President or whatever you want to call him. Then he hires a GM to take care of the day to day. Then, He hires the coach he wants to carry out that vision. Unless of course you’re the Chicago Bears who consistently do it backwards. Except for this year where they did it right for the first time.
They 1000% need to clean house. Being a fan from Mass forgive me if Im a little bit ignorant on the day-to-day ops as I don’t enjoy the local coverage advantages that u lucky AZ natives do. But from week1 last season to week18 today this entire thing turned to sh*t and I think KK, SK and VJ and the awful culture they created there are the reasons for the absolutely disgusting way this season played out. I focus on the mistreatment of Isaiah Simmons as the most obvious example of this. This kid has been used as the scapegoat, benched, promoted and demoted and thrown under the bus more than any player I think I’ve ever seen. And the kid has shut his mouth and played his a** off every single game despite this and he continues to be underrated and underappreciated while literally an entire offense filled with underachievers and guys who seemingly DGAF about anything but themselves get a pass for an abysmal season.
May I make a suggestion. Last season the Jags were very close to hiring Byron Leftwich as HC and Adrian Wilson as their new GM and I was all for that. Adrian Wilson is 1 of my All-time favorite NFL players and the reason I became a AZ fan and I think this franchise needs a completely different approach than it’s had and bring in some intelligent football guys with a fresh outlook and besides maybe Larry Fitzgerald, there’s nobody more qualified to come in, set a tone, and lead by example than #24 Adrian Wilson. And he happens to be one of the baddest MFs to ever play the game so the players will have absolutely no misconceptions about who’s in charge and what the teams goals are. Just my 2 cents on that matter